Rich's Wild Patience

Last week I finished one of my many "night stand" books (though they technically sit on a shelf cleverly built into my headboard), Adrienne Rich's A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far. For those who have read and enjoyed Diving into the Wreck and/or The Dream of a Common Language, Patience is an indispensable addition to the Rich collection.

Here are some of Rich's words, out of context, pulled from poems throughout:

• "...I turn again, slip my arm / under the pillow turned for relief, / your breathing traces my shoulder. Two women sleeping / together have more than their sleep to defend." ("The Images")
• "Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius / to spin and weave in the same action / from her own body, anywhere-- / even from a broken web." ("Integrity)
• "The world as it is: not as her users boast / damaged beyond reclamation by their using / Ourselves as we are in these painful motions // of staying cognizant: some part of us always / out beyond ourselves / knowing knowing knowing" ("The Spirit of Place")
• "it is meant to be in silence that this happens" ("Frame")
• "When language fails us, when we fail each other / there is no exorcism." ("Rift")
• "Unborn sisters, / look back on us with mercy" ("Turning the Wheel")

For those who have not read this era of Rich's writing before, I hope these samples provide a useful tour (though superficial) of Rich's concerns and her artful turn of phrase.

I have heard from many students and friends that Rich is difficult, particularly on first read. She demands a curious, critical, and open reader, which none of us is all the time. I have put down her poems in the past when my mind was too dull with exhaustion or distraction, knowing I needed to return when I could give them more of my attention. So much of Rich's poetry is about the need to pay attention in life, to interrogate assumptions, to make decisions and bear witness with a critical mind. It is only fair that her poetry require the same quality of attention from her readers. It strikes me that reading Rich's poetry is practice for living the kind of life she models in her work. Surely my eyes, my mind, my body moves differently after living a bit in her words.

What I hope the sampled lines above reveal is that Rich can be prosaic in her poetry -- not in the dull sense of the word, but in the straightforward sense of it. In Patience, Rich gives us her characteristically tight, passionate poetry, but she also offers quite a few footholds to her reader. I often feel she is saying here, this is what I am trying to say. Read the poem again now. And I do. And I never regret it.